Sir:

What is this obsession that you have with making every student a Black Belt? There are Black Belts throughout the U.S. that could not fight from a wet, paper bag. I know the well-worn arguments that martial arts training teaches students to gain self-confidence, earn better school grades, learn to be leaders, to live healthy and productive lives, etc. I agree with all that - but the bottom line is that a Black Belt should be able to defend himself or herself under most conditions - but.

You can put a nine-year-old in a good basketball program, and if the average young person who has no basketball training went one-on-one with the trained player, then, after a three-year-period, the nine-year-old would wipe the floor with the untrained person.

Yet, after several years in a martial arts school, many children could not defend themselves against the toughest kid in school, or a strong adult could overwhelm them! Something is very wrong here.

To repeat, I know that Black Belt is more than fighting, but Black Belts should know how to fight. After all, they spent years in a martial arts school learning to do just that.

If the bottom line is self-defense, but you feel that being a Black Belt has more important qualities, then why teach fighting techniques in the first place? Why not play basketball? A doctor spends many long years in college to be - a doctor - and nothing else. 

Today, Black Belt, in general terms, is a farce. Most non-martial artists can see that. It is the moneymakers that dupe themselves and their students (especially the parents) into believing otherwise.

If there are to be six- and seven-year-old Black Belts, then will I to walk into my doctor’s office one day and see a seven-year-old ready to examine me.

Whatever happened to long years of hard training, learning the healing arts, doing research and writing book reports, entering into tough competition, being tested in very small groups, learning to lead class, etc?

Why do we allow, as an industry, to permit so-called Black Belts who have no college education, to teach children with special needs?

No matter how you cut it NAPMA is about money, contracts, upgrades and all the various moneymaking clubs (especially the ridiculous Black Belt club).

Professionals should be paid well for their services, but I would not consider many school owners as professionals.

I could debate on most martial arts subject and present what I believe is a wrong trend toward martial arts financial success, and not the true development of the individual student.

Whenever I write any article that is published on my views I am called a dinosaur publicly, but it is the positive e-mails and phone calls that I receive that reinforces my views.

One grand master who has been teaching for more than forty years, as I have, told me that I am wasting my breath, that the money bottom line has deep trenches, and that we will change anything. By the way, this grand master is a great success, as I am.

I do believe that NAPMA and Martial Arts Professional magazine have great value, and those that need business help can benefit from them.

As for an old warhorse like myself, I still want to see tough, demanding and physical tests, and Black Belt reserved for only the special few, the knowledgeable, and the educated.

Soke David L. Grosscup